Don Fry history working in the
time sharing development area.

June 7, 2018
"revision 00"

My memory for dates is fragile or missing for the
events of half a century or better ago. I have put together, where I
was personally involved, those projects that bore on the development
of the time-sharing era. It starts with the creation of one of the
first commercial operating system that was developed and put into
widespread use outside of the closed industrial and academic
communities. The direct access TIME-SHARING (T/S) available in the
1960 to 1999 era is, from a users point of view, the same as what is
now called “CLOUD COMPUTING. The difference is simply that the
CLOUD users terminal is smart and our T/S user terminal was dumb. I
was involved in the design, coding, integration, debugging, testing,
and then the use of the following T/S systems:

1961: I went to work for General Electric
Computer Division in Phoenix Arizona as a Test and Diagnostic
programmer in the engineering unit of the 200 line of GE computers.
I analyzed the logic and design primarily for the DataNet 30 (DN-30)
communications computer. I programmed (in machine language) test for
all of the communications functions for the control of not only
telephonic start-stop interface circuits but related external
functions such as automatic calling, voice answerback, and voice
recognition. I programmed various test for the peripherals and
mainframes of the GE 200 line of computers.

In 1962, John
Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz at Dartmouth
College submitted a grant for the
development of a new time-sharing system. Its implementation began
in 1963, by a student team under the direction of Kemeny and Kurtz to
provide easy access to computing facilities for all members of the
college. In May, 1964 the system began operations.
The Dartmouth Time
Sharing System (DTSS) remained in
operation until the end of 1999. DTSS was originally implemented to
run on a GE
225 computer with a GE
DN-30 as a terminal processor. Later, DTSS was reimplemented on the
GE-635 still using the DN-30 for terminal control. The 635 version
provided interactive time-sharing to up to nearly 300 simultaneous
users in the 1970s, a very large number at the time.

1962-1964: Six of the group of programmers
employed in the engineering unit that later became the so-called OKIE
CODERS (OKIES) worked with two of the DTSS student programmers on a
“bootleg” project within our engineering section, to
build a working commercial timesharing operating system from the
public domain DTSS Operating System (OS) that came from Dartmouth
College. This was mostly debugging error ridden OS code for the GE
235 and DN-30 written by students and designing and implementing all
of the supporting programs. This was accomplished using our
engineering prototype CPU units scattered over the GE factory floor.
We also had to teach operations how to operate this system designed
to run continuously 24/7. We even had to write a brief BASIC
language teaching book because Dartmouth used blackboards and loose
leaf manuals to teach students the language and commands to use the
system remotely over telephone lines at the standard teletype speed
of 110 bits per second. After cleaning up the DTSS system we placed
teletype terminals in volunteering GE employee homes as well as
terminal rooms at the GE plant. This gave us actual users that
enabled debugging of the system as well as allowing us to write and
debug the accounting and billing routines so that the system could be
brought up and sold by the GE data centers as the revenue producing
system called the GE TIMESHARING SYSTEM. The system was used and
sold by GE internationally for over twenty or so years with upgrades
to the hardware as computer circuits and iron advanced.

1965: Developed and implemented an
interactive testing system for the GE 645 (MULTICS) special hardware
in coordination with manufacturing quality control and installation
testing with Dr. Corbato at MIT and Dr Vyssotski at Bell Labs. This
was called PROJECT MAC and used an extremely fast firehose drum for
memory paging. The first complete MULTICS hardware was delivered to
Bell Labs about 1965.

1965-1966: I was one of six OKIES hired by
the IBM Data Processing Division head, F.G. (Buck) Rodgers, to write
a timesharing operating system (OS) for the IBM 360 line of computers
so that IBM could compete with GE and TIMESHARE INC. in the computer
timesharing public marketplace. IBM had a timesharing product that
ran on the 1401 mainframe and later the 360 line mainframes called
QUIKTRAN. It was a dog and although it was a real T/S remote access
system it was not released to the public as a service until March of
1967.

We OKIES worked under a contract
between a New York City based software body-shop named COMPUTER
APPLICATIONS INC. (CAI) and IBM. We reported verbally to the IBM’s
Head pf Data Processing BUCK RODGERS. The original contract was for
one year, to produce a system allowing 128 to 256 simultaneous users
to run the QUIKTRAN 2 version of the Fortran language. It was to
operate as a freestanding T/S operating system on the IBM system 360
models 50 and 65. It was originally planned for our small group to
operate from IBM facilities located in New York City but was
negotiated to operate from an IBM leased facility in downtown San
Jose, California after we refused to relocate to NYC. The six OKIES
all moved from our GE jobs in Phoenix, Arizona to San Jose. We were
joined by an administrative manager from CAI and one woman who wrote
a BASIC and a FORTRAN compiler while we wrote the operating system,
all in machine language, for the IBM 360 system. Two more ladies
from New York joined we OKIES as functionary programmers. As the
software progressed we hired two more programmers from GE in Phoenix
to join us to complete the OS. In addition to designing and writing
the code we set up and conduct alpha and beta test using live users,
organized and printed documentation, wrote the command and language
manuals, and debugged the OS as coding flaws were discovered during
the beta test. IBM employees assigned to our project grew to over 30
persons which included support administrators as well as programmers
(which we trained on our OS code so that they could provide ongoing
IBM support) but thank goodness they left our group alone except for
frequent meetings where we provided progress reports.

We completed and turned over the
system to IBM on-schedule, on-budget, and various beta test proved
that 128 simultaneous users obtained designed response times to their
execution of their remote task. This product was never released to
buyers of IBM hardware products as a free standing OS.

1967-1968: IBM at the direction of BUCK
RODGERS ask the OKIES if we would contract to take the freestanding
T/S system and make it run efficiently with it’s standard batch
operating system OS. We could not make any changes in it’s OS
but we must preserve the blazing efficiency of our T/S system. The
OKIE CODERS incorporated ourselves as a company named REACTIVE
COMPUTER SYSTEMS (RCS) with the six OKIES as owners and about five
other ex-GE persons as additional employees. After a quick assessment
of IBM OS and several meetings with the original designers of IBM OS,
we agreed to contract with IBM for RCS to perform the conversion and
all necessary other task as assigned by IBM.

While all of this
was going on IBM had established and operated a unit to produce a
operating system they named TSS to compete in the existing T/S
marketplace. TSS had cost many millions of dollars, had almost 100
staff, and spent three of so years and produced nothing competitive.
IBM just did not have the software experience and expertise to design
an on-line interactive multi-user operating system and TSS became too
all encompassing to function efficiently. We were funded monthly by
IBM’s BUCK RODGERS in competition with this TSS project and we
jointly made monthly progress reports to him verbally.

We thus contracted with
IBM to convert the IBM OS with a one line change in their OS and
using their standard control interface standards to run the free
standing machine language code we had written to operate under IBM’s
standard OS. As a final performance test I traveled to the IBM
facility at Westlake California where a IBM model 65 as well as a
Model 50 mainframe were up and running. I had arraigned to have 256
RS232 communications cables manufactured enabling me to connect the
model 65 and model 50 communication modules back-to-back enabling me
to run software we designed on the Mod 50 which simulated 256 remote
users. Our test software recorded the individual response time and
all fell within acceptable limits. This was with the model 65 tuned
to provide our T/S task allocated just 50% of the available memory
cycles and with the other 50% being allocated to various batch jobs
being ran simultaneously. IBM allowed us to write a command console
only master command function to allocate memory cycles between our
T/S job and all other “batch” jobs to run simultaneously
on the system. This product was called CALL/360 OS during production
and testing. This conversion was completed on-schedule and
on-budget. To my uncertain knowledge, there was never any user code
that broke the security of this operating system and thus broke the
security of any users data even though all of the operating system
code was open and available to anyone running the software.

We also conducted
several months of training of IBM marketing and sales management
persons from both the U.S. and IBM WORLD TRADE to go out and sell the
product which was officially named CALL/360. The system was
unbundled and was made available free to IBM system users. It is
unknown how many large IBM mod 50 and 65 system owners used CALL/360
internally or as a public on-line revenue producing facilities but it
must number in the thousands. RCS provided one of our employees to
go to Paris France for over six months and make all necessary changes
to the French version of CALL/360 terminal I/O code to enable its use
with the French telephone systems. Over 35 large universities
worldwide used the software system which was unbundled and free for
their use. The University of New Mexico used CALL/360 for over
thirty five years for student, department, and professional use until
it was supplanted by micro based systems.

IBM then ask us to produce a design write up
explaining why we designed each major function of the software as we
did. This took several months and four of the OKIES produced this
large document. We were called upon by IBM several times

As we performed these
additional task, all IBM software products were “unbundled”
under the US Federal Court anti-trust decree and were transferred to
the wholly owned subsidiary of IBM named Service Bureau Corporation
(SBC) much to the disgust of most of the IBM employees that were
affected and were connected to our project. RCS was called upon
several times to unlock and suggest fixes to various functions of the
CALL/360 system which we did as a service to IBM.

1969-1971: REACTIVE COMPUTER SYSTEMS (RCS)
became a wholly owned subsidiary of MEMOREX corporation and all of
the employees became Memorex employees. The subsidiarary was named
MEMOREX REACTIVE COMPUTER SYSTEMS (MRCS). We were acquired to
develop a time-shared capable CPU and associated communications
hardware to sell as a system using Memorex existing peripheral
hardware. We were to then build an operating system to run all of
this gear. After a year or so with nothing happening myself and
several other of the original OKIES left the company and went our
separate ways.

1972-1999: I developed a business plan to
buy a minicomputer based timesharing system, write small business
back office applications such as payroll, accounts receivable,
payable, and general ledger, sell small businesses an acoustic
coupler and keyboard printer terminal such as a model 35 teletype
unit. Each business used their existing or leased a new telephone
line and paid me to allow them to hook up and send data to me and
receive checks and reports that were printed at their terminal as
well as storing, securing, and backing up their data. I found that I
could not purchase business software capable of running on existing
minicomputer hardware. But having taken the one required business
course in engineering college, and having hand calculated and written
payroll checks for our little company, I would simply write a general
purpose payroll and job-costing application program in the Basic
language. I was still writing payroll software changes due to tax
laws 30 years later.

I developed a business plan, moved to Santa Fe,
New Mexico, found investors to share the start-up years cost,
purchased a BASIC TIMESHARING INC (BTI) 3000 minicomputer system with
16 modem ports, Two 7.5MB removable hard disk drives to enable full
disk backup, and two BELL 103 telephone modems connected to two
computer access telephone lines. The CPU unit was a HEWLETT PACKARD
3000 minicomputer. I also rented a AT&T model 35 teletype
machine which had a keyboard and printer.

I then started writing
payroll computer code using the BTI interpretive basic language and
seeking business customers. Twenty five years later I had two BTI
3000 computer systems, one 30MB hard disk drive, 32 modem ports, two
¼ inch cassette tape drives for backup, Ten 300 baud modems,
two 1200 baud modems, twelve computer access telephone lines, and two
DIGITAL EQUIPMENT (DEC) DN30 keyboard printer terminals converted to
run at 2400 baud.

I had two employee partners, one a
salesman business bookkeeping troubleshooter, and one a computer
engineer like myself who had been one of the CALL/360 OS system
developers. We had, by the way, over one million lines of business
applications code written in BTI basic language. There were over
20,000 payroll checks, 5,000 accounts payable checks, 10,000 payables
statements, and 250 sets of bookkeeping reports printed monthly by
over 350 small business firms using this system. We ran 24/7 365 ¼
days a year with only two computer systems failures over the years
and never had a breach of security of our or customer data. Beat that
Mr. Gates! There were many hours of general power failure outage
over the years but never once had a scrambled disk file as a result
of a power failure. Twice our computer room air conditioner failure
resulted in shut downs to prevent temperature damage to the hardware
systems. We had only one instance of fire in our computer cabinet
and that was the result of an lightning strike induced capacitor
short in a modem. We had zero software system failures thanks to a
BTI rock solid operating system and hardware design.

1999: The microcomputer age started to
happen and after buying a PC and watching micro computing develop
over a period of years we decided that we had been there and done
that and did not want to go through the birthing pangs of another
computer system development. Using micros we saw no way to protect
our software from theft and most importantly protect customer data
from unauthorized access. We wrote papers, books were published,
lectures were given but Mr. Gates, Mr. Allen, and others did not
listen or understand. Thus the present state of affairs in the
computer security department.